Spring project
TA: Spring, or Total Annihilation Spring (a rename to SpringRTS or just Spring is under consideration), is a program originally created as a 3D Total Annihilation demo viewer by the Swedish Yankspankers, but that has since progressed into a full 3D open source RTS engine. The core game is released under the GPL License; however, since TA Spring uses units from the original Total Annihilation game, you must own TA to legally play TA Spring. It is being developed by the Swedish Yankspankers and the TA Spring community, currently led by Zaphod. The initial goal was to have the game run the mods and 3rd party units from Total Annihilation. This goal is now mostly complete, and the project has moved on to including additional features. The game is mainly focused around multiplayer games over the Internet or a LAN connection. There are currently no single player campaigns or missions, although there is some basic support for this through Lua scripting. There are also many skirmish AI's under development, allowing for offline play or extra players in an online game. Two such skirmish AIs (JCAI and NTAI) ship in the game package. The Source Code TA Spring's source code, licenced under the GNU General Public License, is primarily written in the C++ programming language with the exception of the lobby which is written in Delphi, and the server and client which are written in Java. The C++ code structure is written in an object-oriented manner and is documented using doxygen standards in addition to non-standardized formats. The official source code package includes project files for various IDEs and building tools, including SCons, KDevelop, Microsoft Visual C++ 7.0/8.0, and XCode. Features Some of the defining features of this game are: * Large battles, with support for up to 5000 units per player. * Ability to handle extremely large maps. * Fully 3D camera view, allowing for completely free movement. * Realistic 3D trajectories for weapons * Fully 3D air combat * Very detailed terrain. Some maps are directly exported from terrain rendering tools such as L3DT and Terragen. * Deformable terrain (example) * Compatible with unit files from Total Annihilation, allowing 3rd party units to easily be moved into TA Spring. * Large ''Total Annihilation'' mod base, ranging from the popular TA mod, Absolute Annihilation, to spaceship wars in TA: Final Frontier, to modern day warfare in World Domination and Star Wars-based combat in Star Wars TA. * Frequent updates, bug fixes and additions. Mods There are several mods currently available for TA: Spring. These include: *'Absolute Annihilation: Spring'. Based on units by various unrelated unit groups, this is a port of the very popular Absolute Annihilation mod to Spring. It is developed by Caydr, and is the most played mod on Spring1. It is designed to be a balanced version of Total Annihilation. *'XTA'. This mod is packaged with the game, and developed by the Swedish Yankspankers. It is also designed to be a further balanced mod of Total Annihilation, but does not have the depth of units, nor the graphics of Absolute Annihilation. Starting from the 0.70b1 version of Spring, XTA: Pimped Edition is included with TA: Spring, which includs more advanced graphics than the original XTA. This mod is the second most played mod on TA: Spring. *'TA: World Domination'. This mod is designed to simulate modern combat. *'Final Frontier "The Next Generation of War"'. This mod features spaceship combat. *'Star Wars TA'. This mod is designed to simulate combat as shown in the Star Wars movies. *'Gundam Annihilation'. A mod focusing more on building than resource collection, Gundam Annihilation features Gundam combat. *'The Lost Legacy'. This mod adds a new race to TA Spring, featuring 150 new units. *'UberHack'. Another rebalanced take on Total Annihilation gameplay. Community Spring has a small, close-knit community that evolved from the original Total Annhilation community. At any given time, you can find many users online on the main Spring server. The more experienced users tend to know each other. A rank system is maintained to demonstrate the experience of its members. The different ranks are: *'Newbie', shown by one chevron. These users have played for less than five hours. *'Beginner', shown by two chevrons. These users have played for between five and fifteen hours. *'Average', shown by three chevrons. These users have played for between fifteen and thirty hours. *'Experienced', shown by three chevrons, one pica. These users have played for between thirty and one hundred hours. *'Highly Experienced', shown by a star. These users have played for more than one hundred hours. The Future As TA Spring continues to grow and improve, additional features will be added. The following is a list of currently planned features that are not yet implemented in TA Spring: * A new unit scripting format to replace the outdated COB scripting language used by TA. A new unit format has already been made, replacing the outdated .3do, by adding UV mapping, self illumination, and better support for team colours. * A new map format, similar to Warcraft III's map format. * A totally reworked GUI. * Dynamic explosion, weapon and unit lighting. External links *Spring homepage *Spring forums *Spring on BerliOS *IRC Channel: #sy on irc.quakenet.org *FileUniverse Spring section Category:Total Annihilation Category:Free, open source strategy games Category:Fanmade computer game remakes and sequels de:TA Spring fr:TA Spring